Jury Duty

I’ve had one of those ongoing experiences this week with another round of jury duty.  It seems like I am on a rotation of being called every two years which is the time period between set up by the court system.  Your name is pulled from the PFD database (Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend) so if you qualify for the yearly money the state gives out from our oil revenues then you have the honor of serving on a jury if called.

The day goes something like this.  You call into a number the evening before to see if you are to report and if your number is given you must arrive between 7:30 am and eight o’clock for roll call.  There are between two hundred fifty and three hundred people in a huge room.  Waiting.

And waiting . . . then there is another roll call and people head to the assigned courtroom so you may be asked questions from both sides to see if you are acceptable to serve on that case.

The others continue to wait and another group is called for the same process.  This happens several times until everyone is sent to a courtroom or then not needed and released for the rest of the day.  You are then instructed to call in again in the evening for the next day’s trials.

While everyone waits to be called there are chairs and seats scattered all over this large room.  People sit everywhere with no rhyme or reason to the sitting arrangement.  There is no alphabetical, social, or order to any of the seats.  During the first roll call waiting period there is little eye contact, speaking between anyone or interaction between the parties.  Everyone seems ill at ease with everyone else in the room.

Just after the next wait and roll call there is a funny thing that happens.  There is a shift in the room where the women will get up and move around heading to the coffee pot or the magazine racks where they strike up a conversation with the other women.  They will move over to where the person they have met are sitting and they will continue their conversations on many different subjects.

It is not long before the cell phones and blackberry’s come out and the slide show of everyone’s pictures are shown to each other.  There are the children and grandkid photos as well as the many moose pictures taken all over town showing the family’s attempt to be in a picture with a wild moose.  It is really funny to watch this crazy and always entertaining time between women.

The men in the mean time are sitting there quietly reading one of the many out of date magazines or just numbly looking around waiting for the next thing to happen.  It is a totally different dynamic from the women.  Men are simple, we can just sit there content to just BE.

Women are chatting away and continue as the woman starts the next roll call and several miss their name being called and have to ask questions to find out what had just been explained.

Another group is dismissed as the person plead out and did not go to trial so the room slightly empties leaving the last third of the people in the room.  There is another waiting period before a judge comes in and explains what is happening in his courtroom saying it should not be too long before we know if we will be needed as the two sides and the lawyers are in debate.  It will either shortly go to trial or the person will plead out and there will be no further need for a jury. 

Our gal finally comes out and says we are being released for the day to come get our parking validation tickets, our attendance slip and to check the recording this evening to see what tomorrow will bring.  The last of us head out and make the two block walk to the parking garage.  It is a walk that has gotten familiar this week with people slowly making their way back and forth to the courthouse.

I’m not sure anymore if “Justice is Blind” but it seemed that some of the people were or at least were asleep when they dressed as there were many who dressed in wacky outfits or crazy colors.

Tomorrow will bring with it another day.

Ice